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CHAPTER III.

WHY THE AMERICANS DISPLAY MORE READINESS

AND MORE TASTE FOR GENERAL IDEAS THAN
THEIR FOREFATHERS THE ENGLISH.

THE Deity does not regard the human race collectively. He surveys at one glance and severally all the beings of whom mankind is composed, and he discerns in each man the resemblances which assimilate him to all his fellows, and the differences which distinguish him from them. God, therefore, stands in no need of general ideas'; that is to say, he is never sensible of the

1 [I have followed the author in what I conceive to be the

And I perceive how, under the dominion of certain laws, democracy would extinguish that liberty of the mind to which a democratic social condition is favourable; so that, after having broken all the bondage once imposed on it by ranks or by men, the human mind would be closely fettered to the general will of the greatest number.

If the absolute power of a majority were to be substituted by democratic nations, for all the different powers which checked or retarded overmuch the energy of individual minds, the evil would only have changed its symptoms. Men would not have found the means of independent life; they would simply have invented (no easy task) a new dress for servitude. There is —and I cannot repeat it too often-there is in this matter for profound reflection for those who look on freedom as a holy thing, and who hate not only the despot, but despotism. For myself, when I feel the hand of power lie heavy on my brow, I care but little to know who oppresses me; and I am not the more disposed to pass beneath the yoke, because it is held out to me by

CHAPTER III.

WHY THE AMERICANS DISPLAY MORE READINESS

AND MORE TASTE FOR GENERAL IDEAS THAN
THEIR FOREFATHERS THE ENGLISH.

THE Deity does not regard the human race collectively. He surveys at one glance and severally all the beings of whom mankind is composed, and he discerns in each man the resemblances which assimilate him to all his fellows, and the differences which distinguish him from them. God, therefore, stands in no need of general ideas'; that is to say, he is never sensible of the

[I have followed the author in what I conceive to be the

necessity of collecting a considerable number of analogous objects under the same form for greater convenience in thinking.

Such is, however, not the case with man. If the human mind were to attempt to examine and pass a judgement on all the individual cases before it, the immensity of detail would soon lead it astray and bewilder its discernment: in this strait, man has recourse to an imperfect but a necessary expedient, which at once assists and demonstrates his weakness.

Having superficially considered a certain num

sense here given it, will be more familiar to the reader of Condillac, than to the student of metaphysical writers of a more accurate style and of more enlarged conceptions. What is meant by the term here, is simply the result of that inductive process by which the human or finite understanding collects and classifies its impressions for greater convenience in thinking. It may safely be asserted that the Divine Mind does not require inductions to arrive at general ideas; but some inconvenience may arise from the apparent confusion under one term of the mere nominal species or collective notions derived by man from experience, with the general or universal ideas of real essences existing as principles in the Divine intelligence. It is therefore necessary to add that the term is not used in the latter sense in this place; in a subsequent chapter it is applied, with a more correct and extensive signification, to the fundamental conceptions of re

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